The prevalence of onchocerciasis in Africa and Yemen, 2000–2018: a geospatial analysis
Type
ArticleAuthors
Schmidt, Chris A.Cromwell, Elizabeth A.
Hill, Elex
Donkers, Katie M.
Schipp, Megan F.
Johnson, Kimberly B.
Pigott, David M.
Hay, Simon I.
Abbas, Jaffar
Adekanmbi, Victor
Adetokunboh, Olatunji O.
Ahmed, Muktar Beshir
Alanezi, Fahad Mashhour
Alanzi, Turki M.
Alipour, Vahid
Andrei, Catalina Liliana
Andrei, Tudorel
Anvari, Davood
Appiah, Seth Christopher Yaw
Aqeel, Muhammad
Arabloo, Jalal
Jafarabadi, Mohammad Asghari
Ausloos, Marcel
Baig, Atif Amin
Banach, Maciej
Bärnighausen, Till Winfried
Bhattacharyya, Krittika
Bhutta, Zulfiqar A.
Bijani, Ali
Brady, Oliver J.
Bragazzi, Nicola Luigi
Butt, Zahid A.
Carvalho, Felix
Chattu, Vijay Kumar
Dahlawi, Saad M. A.
Damiani, Giovanni
Demeke, Feleke Mekonnen
Deribe, Kebede
Dharmaratne, Samath Dhamminda
Diaz, Daniel
Didarloo, Alireza
Earl, Lucas
Zaki, Maysaa El Sayed
El Tantawi, Maha
Fattahi, Nazir
Fernandes, Eduarda
Foigt, Nataliya A.
Foroutan, Masoud
Franklin, Richard Charles
Guo, Yuming
Haj-Mirzaian, Arvin
Hamidi, Samer
Hassankhani, Hadi
Herteliu, Claudiu
Higazi, Tarig B.
Hosseini, Mostafa
Hosseinzadeh, Mehdi
Househ, Mowafa
Ilesanmi, Olayinka Stephen
Ilic, Irena M.
Ilic, Milena D.
Irvani, Seyed Sina Naghibi
Jha, Ravi Prakash
Ji, John S.
Jonas, Jost B.
Jozwiak, Jacek Jerzy
Kalankesh, Leila R.
Kamyari, Naser
Matin, Behzad Karami
Karimi, Salah Eddin
Kayode, Gbenga A.
Karyani, Ali Kazemi
Khan, Ejaz Ahmad
Khan, Md Nuruzzaman
Khatab, Khaled
Khater, Mona M.
Kianipour, Neda
Kim, Yun Jin
Kosen, Soewarta
Kusuma, Dian
La Vecchia, Carlo
Lansingh, Van Charles
Lee, Paul H.
Li, Shanshan
Maleki, Shokofeh
Mansournia, Mohammad Ali
Martins-Melo, Francisco Rogerlândio
McAlinden, Colm
Mendoza, Walter
Mestrovic, Tomislav
Moghadaszadeh, Masoud
Mohammadian-Hafshejani, Abdollah
Mohammadi, Seyyede Momeneh
Mohammed, Shafiu
Moradzadeh, Rahmatollah
Moraga, Paula

Naderi, Mehdi
Nagarajan, Ahamarshan Jayaraman
Negoi, Ionut
Nguyen, Cuong Tat
Nguyen, Huong Lan Thi
Oancea, Bogdan
Olagunju, Andrew T.
Bali, Ahmed Omar
Onwujekwe, Obinna E.
Pana, Adrian
Rahimi-Movaghar, Vafa
Ramezanzadeh, Kiana
Rawaf, David Laith
Rawaf, Salman
Rawassizadeh, Reza
Rezapour, Aziz
Ribeiro, Ana Isabel
Samy, Abdallah M.
Shaikh, Masood Ali
Sharafi, Kiomars
Sheikh, Aziz
Singh, Jasvinder A.
Skiadaresi, Eirini
Soltani, Shahin
Stolk, Wilma A.
Sufiyan, Mu’awiyyah Babale
Thomson, Alan J.
Tran, Bach Xuan
Tran, Khanh Bao
Unnikrishnan, Bhaskaran
Violante, Francesco S.
Vu, Giang Thu
Yamada, Tomohide
Yaya, Sanni
Yip, Paul
Yonemoto, Naohiro
Yu, Chuanhua
Yu, Yong
Zamanian, Maryam
Zhang, Yunquan
Zhang, Zhi-Jiang
Ziapour, Arash
KAUST Department
Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering (CEMSE) DivisionStatistics Program
Date
2022-09-07Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/681134
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Show full item recordAbstract
Background: Onchocerciasis is a disease caused by infection with Onchocerca volvulus, which is transmitted to humans via the bite of several species of black fly, and is responsible for permanent blindness or vision loss, as well as severe skin disease. Predominantly endemic in parts of Africa and Yemen, preventive chemotherapy with mass drug administration of ivermectin is the primary intervention recommended for the elimination of its transmission. Methods: A dataset of 18,116 geo-referenced prevalence survey datapoints was used to model annual 2000–2018 infection prevalence in Africa and Yemen. Using Bayesian model-based geostatistics, we generated spatially continuous estimates of all-age 2000–2018 onchocerciasis infection prevalence at the 5 × 5-km resolution as well as aggregations to the national level, along with corresponding estimates of the uncertainty in these predictions. Results: As of 2018, the prevalence of onchocerciasis infection continues to be concentrated across central and western Africa, with the highest mean estimates at the national level in Ghana (12.2%, 95% uncertainty interval [UI] 5.0–22.7). Mean estimates exceed 5% infection prevalence at the national level for Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, and South Sudan. Conclusions: Our analysis suggests that onchocerciasis infection has declined over the last two decades throughout western and central Africa. Focal areas of Angola, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Uganda continue to have mean microfiladermia prevalence estimates exceeding 25%. At and above this level, the continuation or initiation of mass drug administration with ivermectin is supported. If national programs aim to eliminate onchocerciasis infection, additional surveillance or supervision of areas of predicted high prevalence would be warranted to ensure sufficiently high coverage of program interventions.Citation
Schmidt, C. A., Cromwell, E. A., Hill, E., Donkers, K. M., Schipp, M. F., Johnson, K. B., Pigott, D. M., Schmidt, C. A., Cromwell, E. A., Hill, E., Pigott, D. M., Abbas, J., Adekanmbi, V., Adetokunboh, O. O., Ahmed, M. B., Alanezi, F. M., Alanzi, T. M., Alipour, V., … Andrei, C. L. (2022). The prevalence of onchocerciasis in Africa and Yemen, 2000–2018: a geospatial analysis. BMC Medicine, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-022-02486-ySponsors
This work was primarily supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation OPP1132415. The funder had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of the report. The corresponding author had full access to study data and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication. Data accessed via the ESPEN portal belong to the Ministries of Health and we would like to acknowledge the national onchocerciasis control and elimination programs for making these data available. F Carvalho FCT acknowledges Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., in the scope of the project UIDP/04378/2020 and UIDB/04378/2020 of the Research Unit on Applied Molecular Biosciences - UCIBIO and the project LA/P/0140/2020 of the Associate Laboratory Institute for Health and Bioeconomy - i4HB; FCT/MCTES (Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior) through the project UIDB/50006/2020M Ausloos, A Pana and C Herteliu are partially supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNDS-UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P4-ID-PCCF-2016-0084. C Herteliu and A Pana are partially supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNDS-UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P2-2.1-SOL-2020-2-0351. A M Samy acknowledges the support from the Egyptian Fulbright Mission program and Ain Shams University. A I Ribeiro was supported by National Funds through FCT, under the program of Stimulus of Scientific Employment “Individual Support” within the contract CEECIND/02386/2018. A Sheikh acknowledges the support of Health Data Research UK. M N Khan acknowledges the support of Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh. B Unnikrishnan acknowledges Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal. K Deribe is supported by the Wellcome Trust [grant number 201900/Z/16/Z] as part of his International Intermediate Fellowship. O Adetokunboh acknowledges the South African Department of Science and Innovation, and National Research Foundation. Y J Kim acknowledges support by the Research Management Centre, Xiamen University Malaysia [No. XMUMRF/2020-C6/ITCM/0004]. T Bärnighausen was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through the Alexander von Humboldt Professor award, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. W Stolk gratefully acknowledges funding from the NTD Modelling Consortium by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (grant number OPP1184344).Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLCJournal
BMC Medicineae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1186/s12916-022-02486-y
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